Chapter Twenty: The Blade and the Memory

Ivy

Lucien’s silence was the loudest thing in the room.

The phone screen still glowed between his fingers, the message burning brighter than the fire behind him. I could see it in the way his jaw locked—the way his fingers flexed like he wanted to crush the device entirely.

You went too far, Lucien. Blood doesn’t lie. Neither do I.

The words echoed in my mind like a curse.

I stepped closer. “Who sent it?”

He didn’t look at me. “I don’t know.”

I didn’t believe him. Not because I thought he was lying. But because I could see the fear in his eyes.

And Lucien Blackwood didn’t scare easily.

I tried again. “What does it mean—‘blood doesn’t lie’?”

He finally looked at me. “It means someone knows the truth about you. About Margot. About… everything.”

My stomach dropped. “But who?”

Lucien’s face hardened. “Someone with access to my father’s records. Someone who’s been watching long before I realized.”

A chill crept down my spine. “Watching me?”

“Maybe us both.”

I turned away, wrapping my arms around myself like armor. “This doesn’t feel like business anymore.”

“It never was,” he said.

And that was the problem.

Because now that love had leaked into the spaces between secrets, nothing was safe.

Lucien made calls for hours after that. Silent, furious calls with words like “containment,” “security breach,” and “trace the signal.” I paced outside the study like a caged thing, unable to stop thinking about the message. About the eyes behind it.

Whoever it was, they knew I was Victor Blackwood’s biological granddaughter.

And that meant they could destroy everything.

Not just my marriage. Not just the fragile balance between Crown Holdings and Sinclair Tech.

They could destroy me.

By morning, the storm outside had passed, but a worse one waited in the stillness.

Lucien emerged from his office like a shadow. Unshaven. Unblinking. Sleepless.

“I’ve increased security,” he said. “You don’t go anywhere alone.”

I arched a brow. “Planning to leash me now?”

His eyes darkened. “You’re not a prisoner.”

“No,” I said quietly. “I’m bait.”

He didn’t deny it.

Later that day, I found my mother’s journal.

It was buried in a carved box beneath the floorboards of the east wing study, beneath old letters and family heirlooms wrapped in silk and silence.

The first entry was dated almost thirty years ago.

I never meant to fall in love with him.

I sat cross-legged on the cold marble floor, flipping through pages stained with time and pain. Her handwriting curled like vines—graceful, elegant, and aching.

She wrote about my father. About Victor. About her guilt. Her fear. Her longing.

I feel like two women trapped in one heart—one burning, one drowning.

I pressed my fingers against the ink. I could almost hear her voice.

She had been terrified. Not just of the affair—but of what it meant for me.

If he ever finds out about the baby, he’ll take everything from me. I see it in his eyes. I’m not his lover—I’m his possession.

Victor Blackwood hadn’t just broken her. He’d hunted her.

I closed the journal, my pulse hammering.

She didn’t run away because she was ashamed.

She ran because she was afraid.

That night, Lucien took me to the rooftop.

It was the only place in the mansion that felt real—open, cold, above the weight of everything below.

The city sprawled beneath us like shattered glass. Lights blinked like a constellation of sins.

“I found her journal,” I said.

Lucien exhaled. “I wondered if you would.”

“She was scared of your father.”

“She wasn’t the only one.”

I turned to him. “You said you wanted to rewrite your bloodline. But maybe the only thing that can fix it is ending it.”

He looked at me for a long time. “Are you planning to kill me?”

I gave a weak laugh. “No. But I am planning to change you.”

Lucien reached for me then. His hands on my waist, his body pulling mine close until I could feel the heat of him melt the frost that lived inside me.

“Then change me,” he whispered.

Our kiss that night wasn’t angry. It wasn’t hungry or rough or rushed.

It was slow. Searching. Like we were both trying to find something human inside the ruin.

He kissed me like I was his salvation.

And for a moment, I let myself believe I was.

The next morning, the blade arrived.

No note. No package. Just a silver letter opener stabbed into the oak of our bedroom door.

Lucien saw it first.

He didn’t speak. Just yanked it from the wood and stared at the hilt.

His jaw went white.

“What is it?” I asked.

He turned the blade in his hand, revealing an engraving I could barely read.

“Legacy is a blade sharpened by silence.”

Then: R.B.

“Who the hell is R.B.?” I whispered.

Lucien’s voice was made of thunder and threat. “Reagan Blackwood.”

My blood chilled. “Your uncle?”

He nodded once. “My father’s younger brother. Estranged. Exiled from the board years ago. He believed the empire should’ve been his. He hated my mother. And he hated me most of all.”

“What does he want now?”

Lucien’s stare met mine. “What he’s always wanted.”

“To burn it all down.”

The day spiraled into chaos.

Lucien had his security team comb the house. Staff were questioned. Alarms updated. Surveillance re-calibrated. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that none of it mattered.

This wasn’t a threat you could fence in.

This was blood.

That night, Lucien opened a safe in the library I hadn’t seen before. Inside was a black folder and a velvet box.

“What’s this?” I asked.

He set the folder aside and opened the box.

Inside sat a necklace.

Gold. Intricate. Beautiful.

And identical to the one in my mother’s photograph.

“My father gave this to her,” Lucien said. “I found it in his estate after he died. He’d kept it in a drawer he never opened.”

I lifted it gently. It was warm. Heavy.

Lucien’s voice dropped. “I want you to have it.”

“Why?”

“Because she left it behind when she ran. And now… you’re strong enough to carry it.”

I didn’t speak.

I just slipped it around my neck.

And felt the weight of my past settle across my skin like a brand.

At midnight, I had the dream again.

Only this time, it wasn’t a dream.

I woke to the creak of the door.

Footsteps.

Soft. Deliberate.

I slid out of bed, heart pounding, fingers clutching the velvet blanket. The hallway outside was pitch dark.

Then, movement.

A flash of shadow. A figure.

I darted into Lucien’s office and locked the door behind me. My hands fumbled with the drawer. I remembered the hidden revolver he’d stashed there for emergencies.

I yanked it free.

Silence.

A knock.

Then a voice, distorted and calm.

“Little heir… You’re not the first to wear that crown.”

My blood ran cold.

“Who are you?” I called.

Silence.

Then

“Ask Lucien what really happened the night your mother disappeared. Ask him what he’s still hiding.”

I swung the door open, gun raised.

But the hallway was empty.

Just the echo of the past screaming louder than ever.